AfterDawn: News

Samsung phone gets DivX seal of approval

Being hailed as the first of its kind, Samsung will be releasing its SGH-F500 mobile phone in late 2007 complete with its own DivX Certification. DivX Inc. does not hand out their certifications lightly as devices are subjected to rigorous tests to ensure interoperability between other DivX enabled devices and also to ensure the quality consumers expect from DivX encoded media.

The F500 is a member of Samsung's premier line of cellular phones and features a large LCD display that sits atop a swivel for optimal viewing range. Samsung claims the device offers high quality DivX viewing in any setting. DivX material can be accessed from either the consumer's own collection, the DivX Stage 6 service or other forms of digital content services.



"The addition of DivX Certification to the Samsung F500 mobile handset opens a broad ecosystem of digital media that can be taken on the road while preserving the kind of high-quality experience that video aficionados demand," said Kevin Hell, President of DivX, Inc. "DivX is working to build a common digital media language that offers real interoperability across devices and platforms, and innovative devices like the Samsung Ultra F500 phone are an important piece of that ecosystem."

No prices have been released for the phone, and expect it to be released to the masses later this year.



Source:
Mobility Site

Written by: Dave Horvath @ 10 Apr 2007 7:28

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• 7 comments

• cashman91

  finally DivX for cell phones

  10.4.2007 07:33 #1

• jemaric

  i would like better coverage on my cell phone than all these money making bull

  10.4.2007 10:22 #2

• A_Klingon

  I have to admit, I like portable DivX-Capable devices, (some). I just bought one. -- (below)
  
  But in a cell phone ??? (Well, I guess so).
  
  I know cell phones have their place, but they are sooooooo ridiculously complex these days, are hard on my eyes, I almost need to push the buttons with a toothpick instead of my clumsy fingers, and they usually require expensive, 1 ~ 3-year locked-in contracts.
  
  And they seem to do WAY too much! (Whatever happened to the basic concept of a simple, portable telephone? Do they even exist anymore?) Now they take pictures, download & play mp3s and ringtones, receive text/e-mail, encode video, play games, surf the net, record your voice, pay your online bills, shine your shoes, scratch your back, pop micro-wave popcorn, (well, only if the popcorn is DivX-Certified), and now..... (I guess), play DivX movies !!
  
  Does anyone ever actually *watch* a full-length movie on, say, a bus or while jogging in the park, or "swimming" at the beach? I imagine the audio must sound pretty tinny while you're snorkling. :-) But yes, I know there are folks who simply cannot *survive* without a cell-phone glued to their ears - and eyes - while sitting on the toilet, or tucked-under their pillow at night, in case they should miss that "ever-important" call.
  
  Now...... a portable DVD Player - *that* I can go for! I just picked this up:
  
  
  
  
  It's a nifty, outrageously expensive ($342.00) Sony player, 8"-16x9 widescreen DivX-home-theater certified gizmo. (And not a pesky "root-kit" to be found!) :-)
  
  It certainly took Gej (the French gentleman who cobbled together the DivX concept) LONG enough to get DivX incorporated into stand alone devices! (Years!). But my god, I pulled out some OLD DivX discs I made several years ago - (about a dozen miscellaneous CDs & DVD-Rs) I had converted from DVD to Home-Theater-Certified movies, with free software I got from Afterdawn (where else?), and Every-Single-One played back smoothly and perfectly! I've never seen them look better! Fast-scan <<Back and >>Forward worked smoothly as silk.
  
  But I simply cannot imagine squinting at say, The Matrix-Trilogy on a micro, miniscule, cell-phone screen. No way! I'd go blind, I think.
  
  But at least DivX seems, finally, after all these years, to have "arrived" into independant, mainstream devices. ('Bout time!) :-)

  11.4.2007 03:04 #3

• georgeluv

  no one gives a crap if it can play DivX encoded avis, now if it did XviD that would be a treat.

  11.4.2007 19:47 #4

• A_Klingon

  "Oh, Ye Of Little Faith, georgeluv. From Whence Thou Speaketh?"
  
  Quote:no one gives a crap if it can play DivX encoded avis, now if it did XviD that would be a treat.The devil you say! Better tell that to all the manufacturers who are now routinely releasing DivX-enabled dvd players all over the place, into Big Box stores like Walmart et al. And we're talking inexpensive players too, mostly ALL under $100, sometimes WAY under. These DivX-capable players are in our newspaper ad flyers almost daily. All the local electronics stores carry them.
  
  Seems that DivX capability is (finally) nudging it's way in there as a bonus format, (like .mp3 and .wma and .jpg file playback.) And of course, there are all those DivX download services which rent (and sell) DivX films. Last time I looked, I didn't see any XviD rental services or XviD video playback devices.
  
  And I mean, hey - what does ... (um....) SONY know, anyway, upstart electronic newbies that they are?
  
  "no one gives a crap if it can play DivX..." (hmmmm....) Perhaps you know something that all these manufacturers, retailers and download services don't? Please let us know.

  12.4.2007 01:17 #5

• georgeluv

  last time i checked the number of movies distributed through DivX was a pittance compared to the number of XviD movies distributed (some say "illegally") via p2p and whatnot.
  
  theorfor the number of people who would see XviD playback as an advantage is substantially greater than the ones who would see DivX playback as an advantage.
  
  plus even though a somewhat healthy number of online sources distribute DivX movies i am going to guess they might be "rental" services or DRM laden, i dont know, i dont deal with that BS. you dont mind dealing with that stuff?
  
  and if XviD is open source why doesn’t every last phone and ipod come with XviD playback huh? theyll never learn…

  13.4.2007 08:31 #6

• A_Klingon

  Quote:last time i checked the number of movies distributed through DivX was a pittance compared to the number of XviD movies distributed (some say "illegally") via p2p and whatnot.I suppose, but it's not really realistic to compare any independant content-download service (whether in DivX or any other format), with the worldwide, broad-based p2p-and-bit-torrent community. The p-2-p'ers will win every time. Comparing FREE stuff versus PAID DRM'd stuff is like comparing apples and oranges. Or like free .mp3s compared with stupid paid-drm'd .wma stuff. (iTunes) The FREE stuff will *always* win out by default.
  
  Quote:theorfor the number of people who would see XviD playback as an advantage is substantially greater than the ones who would see DivX playback as an advantage.That's bad logic, georgeluv. (No, honestly). I never met another person who either encoded or downloaded an XviD video, although I'm sure it's probably done all the time. Aside from that, both DivX _and_ XviD files are freely available via bit-torrent and p2p, so they cancel each other out in that regard. BUT, independent DivX content (movies) are available via 3rd-party vendors. XviD is not to the best of my knowledge. Likewise, DivX-capable devices - mostly standalone dvd players - seem to be cropping up more and more. I've never seen so many. In contrast, trying to find a dvd player that will handle XviD is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
  
  Quote:plus even though a somewhat healthy number of online sources distribute DivX movies i am going to guess they might be "rental" services or DRM laden, i dont know, i dont deal with that BS. you dont mind dealing with that stuff? I sure DO! And I will have none of it either! (That's why I've been busily re-encoding many anamorphic 16:9 dvds lately for my new, portable SONY player. They look freeking gorgeous!) ['Home Theater Profile'] :-)
  
  You're right, the independent DivX stuff is DRM'd, but only slightly-so. You can either rent (or buy outright) all sorts of content, all of which is 'allowed' to be played back on SIX different devices. (Assuming you can afford that many). Nonetheless, I will have NO DRM'd stuff within a 500-meter radius of my PC. DRM is toxic, radio-active waste; we know that. <gg>
  
  Quote:and if XviD is open source why doesn’t every last phone and ipod come with XviD playback huh? theyll never learn…Demographics or something, I imagine. [shrug] Joe Public has heard of 'cellphones'. But not 'XviD'. :)
  
  (Do you really want to watch video on a micro-cellphone screen anyway?)

  16.4.2007 13:29 #7